2010-03-18

Avenger and Devastator

Random fact: The United States Avenger Class features the most badass and simple ship names of any current ship class, including the Devastator, Warrior, Gladiator, and so on . . . though they also have the Dextrous, which is kinda lame by comparison. But that's about as lame as most other current Naval ship names.

In short, that class gets all the good names that are taken up in other classes by excessively verbose hails to various people in modern Naval naming conventions. I mean, really, is USS Ronald Reagan or USS Dwight D. Eisenhower better in any way than USS Reagan or USS Eisenhower would've been?

But in any case, it's nice to see the Avenger and Devastator together.

The best American ones are those of the Nimitz class, not a bad name in and of itself (though it was still named for a person), but the remaining nine Nimizes all follow this pattern...

USS Dwight D. EisenhowerUSS Carl VinsonUSS George H. W. Bush

Need I go on?

The best (and only) British aircraft carrier meanwhile? The Invincible class, with three ships...

HMS InvincibleHMS IllustriousHMS Ark Royal

As you can see, there's really no contest...

Naturally, the British also name alot of their ships after stuff that's important to them, but for my money, Iorn Duke, Montrose and Northumberland make vastly better names for frigates than Oliver Hazard Perry, Samuel Eliot Morison and Lewis B. Puller do...

The name means shit against a missile. If anything, they perfectly summarize the USA's aggressive posture towards the rest of the world that's been going on for more than a century.Just a little bit of patience and we shall see the USS Executor, USS Terminator and USS Despoiler.

You claim an *anti-mine ship name* summarizes your baseless belief in an imperialist US. Did you even check the ship class before you posted? It's an anti-mine ship. That's like the warship at the bottom of the bag of warships. Like, the next ship down is a mail-carrying transport or something, but one badass ship name and off you go villifying the United States and claiming support for your twisted worldview.

The US isn't perfect and doesn't claim to be, but of all the primary nation-states of the world that have made as much history, and of all her contemporaries that vied for dominance with her, she was the most sublime.

It is quite fantastic how Americans manage to convince themselves that what their country sells best is love, democracy and better values, when for anyone who has checked the true history of the country, it's been destabilizing pretty much the whole world (with a strong effort against Europe), and that started soon in the country's history.

What country or countries do you think should have led the world against communism, hmm? What country or countries should have supported Cuban independence (or, the way it played out, semi-independence, but it was at least a bit better)? What country or countries should've saved Europe's collective ass?

Matter of fact, if you're a European bitchin' about evil ole' America always trying to keep Europe down, you can kiss my ass right now because you're so full of it you don't even know which end is up.

The history of the United States is replete with instances of generosity coinciding with self-interest (final entry into WW2 after supporting free Europe via materiel sales being a fine example). Perhaps you argue against some unknown party that sells America as pure generosity, but even though that's not entirely true it's more readily arguable than most other powerful nations could even pretend to achieve.

No one but an America-hating leftist would dare suggest that America's tried to sell itself as some hippie utopia of love and understanding. We were capitalists and assholes and that rocks. Now we're more socialist and wimpier in attitude. Frankly, you have the whole situation completely backwards if you think our problem is too much wang-waving . . . if anything, we haven't been waving it *enough*. Like I said and like you ignored, we only wave our wangs in little ways, like giving badass names to frickin' anti-mine ships, where they do absolutely no good. What are we trying to do with those names, be aggressive imperialist bastards against mines? Who's that scaring, hmm?

Case in point . . . Afghanistan 2001/2 was a grand way to strike fear into enemies ("Dude, they toppled our country in like 2 hours, wtf"), and the Iraq War was nice, too . . . but then the American Left and its media joined with the insurgency in an America-hating Festival (still calling it the Iraq War for some odd reason), rejoicing at the death of American soldiers and blaming them for all manner of false crimes, and the United States no longer had one voice. The parallels with Vietnam are striking, just not in the ways you guys want to believe.

(But hell, the media side of the story's the same even for events like the Falklands War, where the BBC went into detail about unexploded Argentine bombs much to the consternation of servicemen who would later die when the Argentinians supposedly fixed them based on the BBC tip.)

With the Phillipines, we got hardcore on insurgents and kicked their asses, electing an ass-kicker from that war president. With Iraq, we elected the first surrender-monkey we could find . . . he's bowing to our enemies, pissing off our friends, and by damn if he hasn't surrendered to the USSR 20 years after the end of the Cold War. It's retarded.

But, digressing, compare what America and the West did with its vanquished and conquests (Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, or the Phillipines) versus what the Soviets did with East Germany and all their conquered or subject lands . . or even the not-so-conquered like Afghanistan.

Compare the United States and its so-called imperialism to that of the British Empire. Compare the suffering of innocents in Iraq to the suffering of innocents in India.

There's no comparison, you can't pretend there is, and furthermore you can kiss my ass if you want to pretend otherwise.

The world is not full of fluffy bunnies and everyone trying to sing kumbaya but for wicked Americans swaggering about with M-16s and laser-guided bombs, and you're a moron if you think otherwise. The world's a scary place and there are a lot of assholes within it, and some of them have guns and tanks and whole armies. Some even have nukes.

If you think the best way to deal with that is to try to tear at the country that has the greatest power used most nobly*, you can bite me.

(*creating a very nice ratio even in comparison to less powerful countries, but a really kickass ratio compared to those like Russia or China or other wannabe competitors),

See, it's not that I'm pretending America's the greatest thing since sliced bread. The problem's that you're pretending it is the worst.

The truth is somewhere in-between in regards to America . . . but the truth of most other powers is further down the list. Creating for ourselves great power, the United States has usually wielded it with temperance.

Are we perfect? Of course not. Why the hell do you think we have to be? All we have to do is be better than the competition, and I'll be damned if that ain't so.

Do you really wanna live in Putin's Russia, or maybe China, or some Euro-socialist nanny state shithole?

Bringing all this back to the topic of the site along with past observations, it's so weird to me that rabidly pro-Wars cats are often leftist, too. The same arguments made about the United States could apply to the Federation . . . I mean, do you really want to be subject to the rule of Klingons, Cardies, or Romulans? Yet guys like you would sit there and claw and tear at the Federation from within while simultaneously glorifying (and screw you for making me use that word) the damned Galactic Empire.

You're really a sick and twisted dude, and unless your next post contains either concessions to reason or dazzling arguments that impress me no end and are worthy of response, this conversation ends here.

In other words, stop your sniveling and/or get off my blog. ("And" if you mean to keep sniveling, "or" if you actually want to put in some useful comment.)

So much for freedom of expression. People like you, G2K, are exactly what's wrong with this country. It's no surprise you are a Trekkie, because they subscribe to the same imperialist, jingoistic, hypocritically fascist mentality you and too many in this country do, and, all the while, you,people like you, the so-called leaders you elect, and the Trekkie jihadist pornography all promote the LIE that "w're peace-loving and tolerant folk, but it's 'm evil foreigners/outsiders/aliensliberals/conservatives that make us fight and make us hate other people so much."

And, if you don't like that, tough shit, it's the truth.

And, if you want to tell me to get off your blog, I'll be more than happy to tell you where to go.

And, if all you have is vapid jingoism and insults, the next reply will simply be these two words: Concession accepted

There is no freedom of expression here . . . this was a comment to my personal site, and as of now is a comment on my personal piece of a public site. I can delete you at whim. If you want to express nutty concepts, go get your own blog.

What's really nutty about your post, though, besides the fact that it apparently took you a year and a half to compose it, is the notion of Star Trek fans subscribing to "imperialist, jingoistic, hypocritically fascist mentality" and the "Trekkie jihadist pornography" while having us blame both liberals and conservatives for our woes.

I don't think you really understand any of the words you used, there. But just for giggles and grins, do please explain how Trek fans are imperialist, how they are jingoistic, how they are hypocritically fascist, and how they are jihadist, and, for fun, the porn part.